Lightening Meditations

For more than twelve years Mgr. Knox contributed every month a shortsermon to The Sunday Times. In 1951 he gathered seventy-one of thesesermons into a book which he entitled Stimuli. Introducing the collectionMgr. Knox warned readers to beware the sting these sermons contained:like the Scriptures, they have barbs here and there hidden beneath thesurface,''ready to pierce the skin of your conscience, though it be as tough tokick the goad as the university of Tarsus can make it." At the same timeMgr. Knox pointed out that the book did not consist merely of scoldings, butcontained comfort as well as admonition.This second collection contains sermons of a later date than those publishedin Stimuli.Through practice Mgr. Knox's skill in condensing his lesson was madeperfect. This volume, I think, is both more disturbing and more comfortingthan the first. Each little sermon illuminates the dark corners of ourconscience like a flash of lightning. The title Lightning Meditations is mostapposite.